JD Wetherspoon opened two new pubs this week: the Navigation Inn in King’s Norton near Birmingham and the Scarsdale Hundred in the Beighton suburb of Sheffield.
Italian restaurant group Zizzi has confirmed a new opening in Lancaster. It is moving into an old retail unit on Market Street in the town.
Caffè Concerto has taken a unit at Long Acre, at the entrance to Covent Garden’s The Yards development. It is a 4,000 square feet venue over three floors, with 180 covers. The Caffe Concerto ground now has 18 sites in the UK, and more in the United Arab Emirates.
Boom Battle Bar, the competitive socialising concept with activities including axe throwing, Augmented Reality darts, shuffleboard, crazy golf and karaoke, has opened a flagship 16,000 square feet venue at the O2 Entertainment District. The food and drink there includes Boom Bites street food, cocktails and a premium bar. It is an eighth site for the Boom Battle Bar brand, with around 20 openings lined up for cities and towns including London, Bath, Exeter, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Manchester, Oxford and Sheffield. Also opening alongside the site at the O2 in January is Trapdoor, a 4,000 square feet New York-style bar and restaurant with live entertainment and art.
Honest Burgers will open a fully vegan restaurant at its site on Garrick Street in Covent Garden in January. It will be called V Honest. The brand will also offer delivery.
The Inn Collection Group is taking on the Dower House and Spa in the Yorkshire town of Knaresborough. It becomes the group’s 26th site in all.
McDonald’s has opened what it says is its first net-zero carbon restaurant, in Market Drayton. It is being powered by on-site solar panels and wind turbines, and has various features built with recycled materials. The site will be a blueprint for other McDonald’s openings in 2022 and beyond.
Filipino fast food brand Jollibee opened in Nottingham this week. It is the eighth location for Jollibee, after London, Leicester, Liverpool, Leeds, Reading, Newcastle and Cardiff.
Cornwall-based seafood restaurant Shutters has just opened at the One Canada Square development in London’s Canary Wharf.
The Island Poke Hawaiian brand is to expand into Edinburgh at an undisclosed location early next year. It wants to open three more sites in the city over the next couple of years.
Cricket-based socialising, restaurant and bar concept Sixes is opening a fourth site in Birmingham’s Mailbox development in early January. It follows two locations in London and one in Manchester.
Ellen Chew’s Mrs Chew’s Chinese Kitchen brand has just opened a third location at Bicester Village. It joins two other sites in Westfield Stratford and Birmingham’s Grand Central.
Australia-based Mexican restaurant brand Zambrero has just opened in Loughton in Essex. It is a second UK location for the brand, after Chalk Farm in London. Zambrero donates a meal for every burrito or bowl it sells, and its sites around the world have so far generated around 53 million meals via Rise Against Hunger’s Plate 4 Plate initiative.
Carnaby’s Ugly Dumpling restaurant is opening a second site on Rathbone Place in Fitzrovia in early January.
Exmouth Coffee Roasters is opening its café and roastery concept Grounded at Camden Market Hawley Wharf early next year. The 1,600 square feet site will be Exmouth’s second Grounded in London, following the original on Whitechapel Road, and will have a 15-metre-long wall of coffee from around the world.
To read last week’s new openings round-up, click here.
